bits

Harvested basil and marigold seed today, and a hyacinth bean pod for Grandma's herb garden next year (inedible, but VERY pretty).

There were about forty seeds of whippoorwill peas and another large amount of them to come in for the next few days. There were quite a few pinto beans to pull in and shell out to cook. I will happily have a pan of those to put with leftovers for tomorrow's lunch.

Puck, our smallest dog, died yesterday. She was between five and six years old (found at the flea market, aug-sep 2006). We think she was hit by a truck that turned around in our yard early in the morning. That was the only thing really 'different' that happened that day and we saw her before that but neither of us could remember seeing her after the truck went away. Poor girl had been hurt before and we found her and fixed her up. This time, we didn't have a clue there was anything wrong until the heat of the day. She always thought she was a fifty pound tiger in a ten pound sack. Esme liked her, she called her 'Crumbs' for the longest time, instead of Puck. The thing that made me know she was missing is at dinner time she did a very annoying dance where she hit your knees repeatedly as you walk to the stairs with your plate for the sink. That didn't happen - and before we went to bed that night I told Mark I realized she wasn't here. He went out with the flashlight and didn't see or hear anything. That was yesterday. Mark found her today, and buried her.

Giant Rabbits sighted at our Lake (not really)

Those rabbits are getting mighty large!


Traffic jam

lake monster!

Puck and Pogo : Round 10

Mark took these pictures of our 'ferocious animals' at play ;)

Pogo Pictures

I asked Mark to take some picture of me to send to my Mom in Minnesota. Pogo has a funny 'What are we doing?' expression here as she tries to wiggle out and jump down.

This morning she was a little ball of energy attacking anything with ears or a tail. Mouse finally asked for solace outside and then Puck got hit by the Kitten Cannonball.


This tree frog with a white stripe was visiting one of our outside windows last night.
I still have some painting to do on the mask - then to try out my idea for the disks on the side. We leave for the Dayton trip next Wednesday, so there is a lot to prepare!

Yarn Came!

The yarn for my knee socks came! It is Morning Glory 'Sock Memories' from KnitPicks. Obsidian Kitten had used that yarn for hers, so I decided to give this colorway a try. I also bought some KnitPicks Essential to try - and some extra Palette for the Circular shawl and for the heels and toes on these knee socks. All of the yarns I bought were wool (Essential is 25% nylon) and fingering-weight... there's a trend there ;o)


The MDK project in progress, and the new sock yarn.

Puck and Pogo play near the house skeleton.
Pogo has really taken her 'place among the pack' here. Almost all of the dogs are playing with her, and Mouse was even seen to kindly roll her around and teach her some pouncing lessons this morning.

Survey: IF you enjoy green vegetables, of any kind, which ones do you like and how prepared?

Maybe I'm a bit strange, but I like brussel sprouts (the crunchy, just barely cooked all the way through kind, not the mushy ones) and steamed broccoli. I eat both of those on occasion, if the proper mood hits me.

Here comes the weekend...

Taking it 'easy' this weekend -- hope the weather warms up for some garden work, though! It was nice and sunshiney out yesterday, but the wind was too cold to do much outside. Puck came through her surgery just fine -- she curled up in a ball on the couch for most of the day yesterday. She did scare us a little by going outside and disappearing for an hour after dark -- but one of the other dogs went out and retrieved her.

Kim at Knitten-kittens, I can't comment on your blog anymore :o( The number verification fails every time :o( Still reading though.


'Counsel from Fox' 03/15/2007 12 noon


I am making some progress on this wool 'shawl.'
It will be a gift for someone in November.

Mark took some more close-up pictures of the Singer that turned out wonderful. We were looking at how it actually worked. He also figured out the bobbin winder! The little kit of odds and ends the seller gave us had two different kinds of bobbins in it -- I was trying to use the winder with the wrong type.


The bobbin loop coming up.


The bobbin in its 'bullet-like' case.

Keeping busy with the Ebay store, knitting rabbits, working on my dream bag weaving... there is a lot going on here. My best friend from high school called last night and we had a good talk, also wished her a belated happy birthday from last week.

Of DST and other woes...

We didn't have that much worry about Daylight Savings Time here - even with all the computers, servers and other time-oriented things. Mark spent that morning doing some clever fixes with zone info files. However, it is time for the puppy to make her visit to the vet - for her surgery. I'll be calling them later on today - poor Puck!


Puck helping out with the garden the other day

Neat site found while browsing:

Schmidling.com: This guy has done amazing things with spinning and weaving. He spun and wove fabric to cut and sew his own shirt, and several other pieces of clothing. Not to mention his pages on astronomy, ham radio, silversmithing, gem grinding... just a total geek renaissance man. Check out all his pages and be amazed!

Also check out Chris' But since I wasn't blogging then contest. I reallly do regret not having a day by day entry of when the girls (Sally and Willowpede) were tiny kittens and just coming home for the first time. That was during a hiatus in my blogging. I still miss them terribly - Mouse reminds me so much of Sally that I've woken up in the night having to figure out exactly which cat is purring and pawing at me. *sigh*

Even more Knit Rabbits...

If you haven't guessed already, I have a 'thing' for rabbits ;o) These little knit ones are very addictive - and the pair has already sold in my Etsy shop! I made the smaller one (only 5 inches tall) out of some of the wool Palette I had sitting on the shelf. It was made with the 14 stitch pattern, but is much tinier than the acrylic 12 and 16 stitch rabbits!

It looks I'm going to get a lot of practice making these little guys!

Please also take a look at my buyable PDF pattern for sewing rag rabbit softie dolls!

Knit a Rabbit

Made on size 3 DPNS, each in two pieces. Knit each piece on 2 needles, using a third for working stitches.
You'll need that fourth DPN needle when working ears and legs!

Head: Start out with (12,14,16) stitches - increase for (2,3,4) rounds, stitch round for (6,8,8) rounds, decrease for several rounds (to an even number), separate for ears, work first ear to end, decreasing to four stitches and drawing yarn through all loops and tying off. Break yarn. Reattach yarn and work second ear as first. Set finished head aside.

Body: Start out with (12,14,16) stitches - increase for (2,3,4) rounds, stitch back and forth on one side for several rows. Break yarn (leave several inches for weaving in), reattach to other side and stitch an equal number of rows for pieces to meet up again. Continue knitting from other needle in round fashion (this will leave two holes on either side of the body for arms to be cast on later... like a mitten thumb. Knit in the round until the body has reached the desired length. Seperate into two equal halves for legs. Work as for ears.

Arms: Cast back on 6-10 stitches on each armhole and work arms as ears.

Finishing: Stuff head and body with yarn clippings. Work in all yarn tails or tie them inside in such a way they will not come loose. Sew head to body with a piece of the project yarn. Use embroidery thread to make happy rabbit faces.

A sweet shot of Puck (the puppy) and Yeller (the outside male cat) playing on the front porch.

Mouse and her Puppy

Mouse has a puppy... her name is Puck. Since she is so much smaller than the other dogs here, Mouse seems to have adopted her. They go in and out the front door together, play in the woods and attack each other in 'chase' all over the house. Of course, Mouse only plays chase with the puppy when she thinks she isn't being observed.. cat dignity and all...



Way back in September, Mouse already watched over this strange, large and unmannered kitten she has acquired. You can see it on her face here -- "Hrmph. What a task this is!"



We're done playing in the yard, time to come in now!


Puck got smacked back soon after this sequence...

What's going on around these parts: A lot of camera work! That is all part of more sewing for the shop, and listing things on Ebay, and fixing of computer equipment. I am working on my mom's birthday present (which includes knit dishcloths), and sent something out in the mail for my nephew's belated birthday.

The weather has been up and down - very warm one day and bright sunlight with cold wind the next. I'm also learning to drive the stick-shift truck - very different, but so far the transmission is still in one piece! So the days are full and varied, with lots of little pieces getting done on things here and there. My dream bag has five rows left to do before I start to plan what the back will look like.. or maybe I shouldn't plan it at all?


Daffodils in the garden here


Sunset at the lake

Starring DeeDee and assorted busyness

Blaze's 'twin' sister is DeeDee - but you can see, perhaps, that they have some differences, especially in the shape of the ears and eyes.


DeeDee has more of the collie showing through. In personality DeeDee is the more anxious one, while Blaze is a more 'simple' and happy puppy.


We've had a busy couple of days here. Yesterday the temperature dropped down to 13 degrees and for a short while, we were without water. A pressure switch had frozen due to a malfunctioning heater in the wellhouse, which was a small problem compared to some things it could have been. Our internet server also went down about the same time! Both issues resolved themselves by noon, however, and things were back to normal again.



However, someone did eat my only spool of white thread yesterday -- I wonder who the guilty party is...